"And the green lamp will not go out...": traditional features of Russian battle studies in M.Y. Elizarov's novel "The Librarian"

• Published in: Филология: научные исследования no. 11; pp. 156 - 164
• Main Authors: Shuiskaya, Yuliya Viktorovna, Kalashnikova, Marina Vladimirovna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.11.2024
• ISSN: 2454-0749; 2454-0749
• DOI: 10.7256/2454-0749.2024.11.72122

The subject of the study is the depiction of battle scenes in Mikhail Elizarov's novel "The Librarian" in the context of the traditions of Russian battle studies. The object of the research is the key motifs of the description of battles used in literature from ancient Russian novels to descriptions of the Civil War and the Great Patriotic War, in their refraction in the artistic world of Mikhail Elizarov. The authors consider in detail such aspects of the topic as the use of significant reference points of Russian battle studies and their peculiar concentration in the texts of chapters devoted to battles. Special attention is paid to the condensation in Elizarov's text of an intertextual dialogue with the motives of the main authors of classical Russian literature who wrote about wars and battles, as well as implicit references to their own fate – death in a duel.  The study uses the method of contextual and cultural-historical analysis. The battle scenes in the text of the novel "The Librarian" are isolated, their significant motives in connection with the traditions of Russian battle studies are described. The main conclusions of the study are the conclusions about the presence in the text of Mikhail Elizarov's novel "The Librarian" of a collage of key motifs of the national tradition of battle scenes, starting with ancient Russian texts and ending with texts about the Civil and Great Patriotic War. A special contribution of the authors to the study is the tracing of the retrospective history of battle studies and the identification of its key motives. Yelizarov's novel was filmed in 2023, which led to increased interest in it, and the battle scenes in the series of the same name were displayed as close to the text as possible using direct quotes. The novelty of the research lies in referring to Yelizarov's novel precisely in the context of battle studies: with considerable attention to the text, this aspect has not been previously considered in modern literary studies.